Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Geoengineering II - Notes on the Politics

It is likely that the very notion of geoengineering strikes most people as preposterous, a science fiction fantasy cure for global warming or another indication of the technological hubris of humankind. (It is possible it is both.) Such dismissals, however, become moot in a study of the politics of geoengineering. It does not matter if it is an effective antidote for climate change; nor does it matter if it is a smart idea or not. What matters, politically, are these two certainties:

Solar radiation management (SRM) is technically viable and financially cheap for most nations.

Those two realities require only the addition of human stupidity and arrogance to initiate global conflict on a catastrophic scale. And we should not doubt the capacity of individuals or states to take up geoengineering in a moment of panic or opportunity. Large-scale interventions in the climate are hardly anything new. Humans just tend not to notice them as they happen. America in the 1930s thought of little but "progress" when it proceeded to dam every river in the New Deal quest to electrify American households. Few international onlookers think China's obscene plan to divert the major rivers that water southern Asia is a wise idea, but China itself is moving forward with Maoist confidence to bring water to the parched North.

My chief purpose was to end the war in victory with the least possible cost in the lives of the men in the armies which I had helped to raise. In the light of the alternatives which, on a fair estimate, were open to us I believe that no man in our position and subject to our responsibilities, holding in his hands a weapon of such possibilities for accomplishing this purpose and saving those lives, could have failed to use it and afterwards looked his countrymen in the face.

Reasoning along these lines—saving the lives of one's own people—could surely be employed by a head of state to justify the use of SRM in the not-so-distant future. If the Maldives hired a private company to disperse sulfate aerosols and prevent sea level rise that threatens the existence of their islands, could they not avail themselves of the same logic as Stimson?

A broad and solid foundation of research would help on three fronts. First, it would transform the discussion about geoengineering from an abstract debate into one focused on real risk assessment. Second, a research program that was backed by the world s top scientific academies could secure funding and political cover for essential but controversial experiments. (Field trials of engineered aerosols, for example, could spark protests comparable to those that accompanied trials of genetically modified crops.) Such experiments will be seen as more acceptable if they are designed and overseen by the world’s leading scientists and evaluated in a fully transparent fashion. Third, and what is crucial, a better under standing of the dangers of geoengineering would help nations craft the norms that should govern the testing and possible deployment of newly developed technologies. Scientists could be influential in creating these norms, just as nuclear scientists framed the options on nuclear testing and influenced pivotal governments during the Cold War.

Fuller engagement in geoengineering research and diplomacy presents its own set of problems. One concern is the idea of a moral hazard regarding emissions. Reader JW made exactly this point in response to the last post:

Overall, I am a bit of a skeptic of geoengineering, chiefly because I feel it creates complacency among the average person and doesn't force them to become more personally responsible. Rather, it perpetuates the notion that we can simply solve our technology-created problems with more technology instead of lifestyle change. Mainly, I'm afraid that once geoengineering technology gets put in place, people would become set on it and not desire more change, even if the geoengineering was sold as a stop-gap measure before a long term solution.

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The Author

An historian, trained as an Americanist with particular focus given to the Civil War, the late 19th century, the South, and race relations. An avid follower of politics, a Democrat with deep faith in progressive causes tempered by sympathy for true conservatism. A teacher and a student.